Red-hot rivalry, but United and Arsenal won't rely on brute force

IT’S indicative of the pleasing depravity of football that the more bad blood that hangs around a fixture the more enticing it becomes.

Most of the rivalry obviously stems from the fact that these have been the only consistently serious challengers for the English title over the last nine seasons, with United winning six titles and Arsenal three. It goes way beyond the acquisition of trophies though, and encompasses all sorts of complex issues of personality, ideology, north v south, and of course the complex question of who has the nicest-looking wife at home.

Tomorrow’s match will be played against a backdrop of fresh memories of last season’s encounter when Ruud van Nistelrooy’s winning and subsequent missing of a late penalty provoked an outburst of ugly recriminations and taunts from the Arsenal players, and a subsequent FA investigation. Bans were handed out to the Arsenal players involved, but Sir Alex Ferguson, who had held out for public executions, or at least the ritual shaving of Ray Parlour’s head, is still grumbling that they "got away with murder".

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Watching those pictures again in the build-up to tomorrow’s match, it’s comforting to see that once again Ferguson is over-reacting. The melee was unpleasant, but a few slaps and pushes were hardly likely to endanger Van Nistelrooy’s career (unlike, say, a full-blooded Roy Keane tackle). From another perspective it would have been easier to sympathise with Arsenal’s disgust at the canny play-acting of Van Nistelrooy were not their own Robert Pires the most shamelessly proficient exponent of "simulation" in English football.

A few of the central protagonists in that battle, notably the departed Parlour and Martin Keown and the injured Patrick Vieira, won’t be there tomorrow. There are still enough potential flash points to ensure the game isn’t played in a lofty Olympian spirit.

Blood and mayhem aside though, this is an interesting rivalry in that, apart from a few individuals (Keane and Pires), it’s a contest that lacks a true villain. Both sides play enterprising, attacking and never-less-than-entertaining football. Neither resorts to dour, spoiling tactics, indeed both would consider it beneath them. In short, it’s a football match where skill and invention are more likely to decide the outcome than brute force or resilience.

Cristiano Ronaldo’s encounter with Ashley Cole is one obvious highlight. Despite their managers’ apparent antipathy to international football, both players have improved considerably since the summer. Ronaldo’s experience with the Portuguese national side, at Euro 2004 and at the Olympics, seems to have brought home the importance of slotting into a team pattern rather than being a maverick individual, the necessity of whipping in a cross rather than performing another step-over. His only quiet game in the European Championship came against England when he was muted by Cole, who, until that match, had been regarded as defensively suspect. Cole has been easily England’s best player in the autumn World Cup qualifiers and his form for Arsenal has been equally impressive.

The probable absence of Vieira will throw up the intriguing possibility of Roy Keane coming head to head with Arsenal’s teenage prodigy Cesc Fabregas. Keane is old enough to be Fabregas’s dad (unlikely, although you never know ... a Nottingham Forest summer tour in Catalonia, a few drinks in a nightclub, one thing leads to another ... ), but, if he could spare a spot of objectivity, he would appreciate that the teenager’s robust athleticism, pristine first touch and perceptive passing are facsimiles of his own style.

Tomorrow will also see two of Europe’s most lethal finishers, Van Nistelrooy and Thierry Henry, up against two of Europe’s most proficient centre-backs, Sol Campbell and Rio Ferdinand. If that isn’t enough, the match should also be graced by the two most exciting young forwards in European football, Wayne Rooney and Jose-Antonio Reyes.

It’s indicative of the riches available at Old Trafford and Highbury that neither manager regards these stars as automatic selections. Ferguson’s treatment of Rooney makes David Moyes seem positively effusive by comparison. It’s as if Ferguson is almost suspicious of the cavalier confidence with which Rooney approaches every game, suspects it is too good to be true and is waiting to find the catch before acknowledging that Rooney must start every game.

Wenger may have a better understanding of Reyes. Realising that he is a player whose temperament thrives on success, but whose confidence can be jolted by a setback, Wenger has deployed him mainly in games where Arsenal were expected to dominate. Reyes’s passing, understanding with Henry and goalscoring (six in the league already this season) have been impressive enough to warrant selection against United tomorrow.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Wenger has the edge over Ferguson in this fixture, and it’s not unreasonable to suggest that it might come down to psychology. Ferguson persists in making inflammatory comments in the build-up to these matches, believing it is to his advantage if the opponents are riled. Wenger’s role is to adopt a lofty disdain. Somehow that seems far more likely to enrage the United manager than if Wenger descended to the same level of hurling invective. The end result is that Ferguson radiates edgy anxiety while Wenger seems coolly detached.

How much of that is communicated to the players is an inexact science. More empirical is the knowledge that if Arsenal win tomorrow they will be 14 points clear. That’s the real reason United should be anxious and Arsenal serene.